


Just One Moment

by Orange_Coyote



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, just steve being the sweetest thing alive, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 04:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5361329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange_Coyote/pseuds/Orange_Coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words leave Steve's lips without any real thought. "You know, you're just like him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something that entered my brain and left through my fingers.

It happens out of the blue, late one evening as the team decompresses after a long battle seeped in spilled blood and alien guts.

Tony is slowly peeling off the skintight bodysuit that protects his vulnerable skin within the Iron Man armor, his face contorted slightly as a particularly painful injury comes to light. Steve is standing watch by the doorway in just his sweats, the others already hitting the showers or retiring comfortably in one of the many rooms provided by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony’s tanned skin, marred and battered as it is, catches Steve eye the same way those marble sculptures did the first time he visited the Met. The man is a masterpiece of strength, determination, endurance, and more.

“You know,” he comments idly, satisfied that Tony doesn’t need to be shipped immediately to the hospital for once, “You’re just like him.”

Tony shimmies fully free from the confines of the bodysuit with a grateful sigh. He makes a questioning sound in the back of his throat, which Steve knows to mean ‘continue I’m listening’ despite the fact Tony neither turns his head nor pauses his post battle clean up process.

“Like Howard,” Steve clarifies, hoping he’s not treading across thin ice by broaching the subject.

Tony stops with his jeans halfway up his legs. “How so?” As Steve pauses to think, the dark denim finds its rightful place against Tony’s hips.

“You forget to be scared.” Steve’s mind thumbs through handfuls of applicable situations as he says the words. Tony flying into a burning building to save a bawling child’s favorite stuffed animal, re-emerging mere seconds before the entire foundation gave away. Tony cutting all powers to the suit in order to avoid its being malfunctioned and used against them, plummeting toward Earth at disastrous speeds with slim chances of surviving. Tony using himself as bait to lure in various enemies. Tony revealing his hydrophobia to the team during a movie marathon at Stark Tower with no show of discomfort after a teasing comment from Clint.

Tony just laughs, dry and void of humor. “Trust me, I get scared plenty.”

“You never show it then,” Steve insists. “You just do what needs to be done every time.”

“I try,” Tony counters. “My choices aren’t always the right ones. Usually aren’t.” He shakes his head and turns away, sliding a t-shirt over his head while slipping his feet into an old pair of open laced sneakers.

“I admire that,” Steve says, inexplicably needing to convince Tony, the self proclaimed billionaire playboy philanthropist, that he is so much more than he knows. “I’m scared a hell of a lot.”

“Language, Cap.”

Steve doesn’t need to see his face to envision the smirk accompanying the comment. He also doesn’t need to see the look in Tony’s eyes to know how desperately the engineer is attempting to change the subject.

“I’m serious, Stark. You’re quite the guy.”

“I know.”

Steve, finally fully dressed within the interim of their back and forth, steps over to Tony. He wraps his arms around the other man’s back, encircling his waist and pulling him close. “Every day I’m discovering something more of you to love.”

Tony leans into the embrace, eyes falling closed with a smile. “Well, yeah. As a wise man once said: I am _quite_ the guy.”


End file.
